More on Monk
In his obsession for order, he notices every stray bit of disorder
Monday, October 21, 2002
Mr. Monk and the Airplane
Friday night we watched the episode in which Monk, very much against his better judgement, goes on an airplane with Sharona. While there he notices enough disparate things to conclude a murder must have occurred in the airport and calls Lt. Disher (who is unusually cooperative: is this a new trend?) to investigate. Disher totally believes Monk and does what he is told, even to the extent of digging up freshly laid concrete without a court order.
Luckily, there is a body below.
In reviewing the episode on the USA website, I noticed a little flaw.Monk soon becomes convinced that one of his fellow passengers - the Frenchman, Stephan Chabrol - has just killed his wife, after noticing that Stephan's "new" wife is at least two inches taller than the woman he saw Stephan kissing earlier.
Actually, what he noticed was that in the first kiss the woman was standing on tiptoe and in the second kiss, she was flatfooted and the husband not bending down.
How did he know the man was not two inches shorter? Or, could she not have changed her shoes? (she didn't, but that issue is not even addressed). The audience assumes right along with Monk that it is the woman who has changed, but we, at least, have the excuse that we had a preview of the action, where wife #2 enters the ladies room and kills wife#1.
Re. technique: I am concluding that the 'solution' to a mystery is provided to the audience in those cases where it is somewhat farfetched, otherwise we wouldn't believe it, and then we watch the detective find out about it.
If the solution is credible, knowing in advance would bore us.
Thursday, October 17, 2002
character or plot?
Do you think the purpose of the story is the plot? I've read in email lists complaints that they give up the answer early on and we get to watch Monk and the cops struggle with it.
I think that's their way of letting you know the puzzle is not the point. Maybe it's really a comedy show. There are some great lines.
This program, Monk, is kind of habit forming.I have a friend who doesn't have cable (do you know anybody who doesn't have cable?? that's the kind of friends I have) who came over two weeks ago to watch Monk with me and is ready to come back for the next one. (She was out of town last week and missed the Willie Nelson episode!)
I really like Monk, more than most other programs I see on TV. It's the only one at present that I actually look forward to seeing. More often, I opt not to watch tv at all --I'd rather make web pages! hehe. But, there have been only a few programs I enjoy enough actually to turn the television on to view.
Some other television shows I have liked recently (in the past oh, say five years or more) are DueSouth and Northern Exposure. And ... hm, I'm sure there was one more, but I can't recall it.
Wednesday, October 16, 2002
I have been fritzing around with the image and the style sheet so long I forget why I wanted to do this darn blog! I still need to put up pageswhere the other links go.
More later, I have to run and meet some friends.
Monday, October 14, 2002
test post
